


Stay

by hufflepuff



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Because They Love Each Other, Bellamy stays, Bellamy stays behind with Clarke, Bellarke, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, I think about these gosh darn characters too much, and they spend the 2199 days together, but like it's just going to be happy because that's what I need, clarke and bellamy are the only onscreen characters but the other ones will appear in flashbacks, fix-it season 4 ending, idk when this will end probably when I get bored, otp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:35:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29341431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hufflepuff/pseuds/hufflepuff
Summary: He can't leave her behind. Not again. Not even if it kills him.Or, what happens if Bellamy stayed behind with Clarke at the end of Season 4 and they spent the 2199 days together.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin
Comments: 11
Kudos: 76





	1. Chapter 1

**BELLAMY**

Later, he wouldn’t be able to explain his reasoning. By all accounts it was an incredibly stupid thing to do, probably suicidal (although who could blame him for being suicidal at this point?), and about the least responsible thing he could do. But he had never been known for being the logical one.

As the clock ticked away the minutes before they had to launch the ship, his heart beat faster and faster and he thought he was going to throw up.

There was no way he could leave without her. Not after everything they had been through together. There was no way he could leave a friend behind.

The tension in the ship was palpable, almost as thick as the hazardous air that they could see growing through the monitors. Clarke was out there right now, activating the signal that would allow them to dock with the Ark, fighting her way through this awful atmosphere. And he had let her go alone.

“If I’m not back, you have to launch without me.” That’s what she had told him. And he had promised her. He always kept his promises. But he couldn’t keep this one.

Maybe she hadn’t wanted him to keep it.

“Five minutes,” said Raven. He could barely hear her over the pounding of his heart.

Hurry, Clarke. They were all thinking it.

She should’ve been back by now. That was all he could think. Ten minutes to the tower, five minutes to activate the signal – five minutes at most – and ten minutes back. It had been almost thirty. She had run into trouble, and she was all alone. Maybe she had been attacked. Maybe there was a leak in her suit and right now she was being flooded with radiation, suffering alone... Maybe she had slipped and hurt herself. She was all by herself. Because he had let her go alone.

For these past months, time had been going by too quickly. All they needed was more time to solve the problem, to find a safe place to wait out the radiation, to save all of their people. But it was moving faster than ever, and all Bellamy wanted was to press stop on the clock and allow her that extra time to get back to all of them. To come back to him.

He waited for the sound of the laboratory door opening, the rush of the gears that would notify them that Clarke was back. All he could hear was his own pulse.

“Bellamy,” said Raven.

He didn’t want to hear it.

Time was out, and Clarke wasn’t here, and everything was wrong.

“We have to go. Or we’re not going to make it at all.”

“Can we give her a minute?” exclaimed Emori, with all the emotion that Bellamy felt in his own gut.

“We’ve given her all the time we can spare.” Raven’s voice was filled with the same emotion. “I don’t want to do this either. But we have to go.”

“I know, Raven. Just give me a second.” He could barely speak. There was a rushing in his ears, like they had already launched, only the ship was still firmly planted on the ground. It was all in his head.

He had let her leave Arkadia months ago, to venture out on her own when she felt that she was beyond redemption. He had left her in Polis when he saw the way she looked at Lexa. He had left her so many times before, it should be second nature, but he couldn’t do it again.

But he couldn’t let his friends die. They were his people, too.

“I need your confirmation, Bellamy.” As if Raven didn’t know what was at stake; as if she couldn’t make the decision herself. She still asked him.

After all this time, they still looked to him as their leader. He wasn’t capable of being that person anymore. How could they still think of him like that, after all the mistakes he had made, all the innocent people he had led to be killed? How he had gone down the wrong path so many times, estranged himself from his own sister, let his friends be tortured and killed? He didn’t even know who he was anymore.

Being with Clarke was the only time he felt like a person at all.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t be who they needed him to be. All he could think was that Clarke needed him, and if he left her one more time, he would never be able to live with himself again.

So he looked Raven in the eyes and said, “Launch.” And as the door began to close, he unclipped his harness, stepped over the pile of supplies in the middle of the launch ship floor, and squeezed out the door just as the hatch closed behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

**CLARKE**

Time was running out.

The only thing she could think as she looked at the counter on her watch ticking down to zero was, I didn’t say goodbye.

Now she would go to her death never speaking to her friends again. Never speaking to Bellamy again. How had she let it go this far without truly talking to him? She would never get the chance to... She couldn’t even finish the thought because it hurt even more than the excruciating pain in her chest from sucking in too-thin air as quickly as she could.

It wouldn’t connect. The signal wouldn’t reach its destination, all because the antenna had to be reconfigured, and there wasn’t enough time. Her friends would die because of her, and it was all her fault, and she just wanted to be good enough for them for a change. To be good enough for once in her goddamn life. After so long letting everyone down, being the bad guy and failing to save the day the way everyone expected – God, the way she wanted to – she was going to fail one last time.

She imagined showing up at the launch ship and having to tell everyone that she had failed. That the ship could launch, but they wouldn’t be able to dock with the Ark, and after all this time they would die anyway. There was no way she could face them.

She just wanted to see them one more time. To see him one more time.

But even more than that, she wanted them to live.

So she bit her lip to keep it from trembling, crushed down the despair growing in her chest, and murmured to herself, “My fight is over.” Then she turned the counter on her watch off, slung her backpack firmly over her shoulders, and began to climb.

Her heart thundered in her chest as she tried not to look down at the ground. Although she had never been afraid of heights exactly, it was a long way down and she didn’t want to lose her balance. The dizziness swept over her as she saw the line of radiation growing in the distance, and she climbed faster, but carefully. It wouldn’t do to lose her balance and go crashing down the tower. She was going to die today for sure, but she couldn’t die until she had completed her mission.

She wouldn’t fail them again.

Higher and higher she climbed, the only thought in her mind configuring the signal so that her friends could get to safety. The image in her mind that stayed even after everything faded away was how brave Lexa had been at the very end, how the only thought in her head was saving Clarke’s life. She had made her last moments count, and it was one of the reasons Clarke had loved her so much. Now Clarke could do the same for Bellamy. For Bellamy and all her friends, that is.

She wanted to go with them. But she would never be able to get back in time.

Her fight was over. But theirs was just beginning.

So she climbed, and she tried to ignore the trembling of her lip and the tears that were beginning to form in her eyes. She might have been the Commander of Death, but death would come for all of them in the end, and today was her day of reckoning. She wondered if it would hurt. After all the death she had doled out, she didn’t deserve a quick death. It would probably be drawn-out because that was what she deserved. Maybe when she got the signal configured she would jump from the top of the tower and end it quickly.

In the distance, she heard the roar of rockets and saw the launch ship shoot into the sky. The tears escaped her eyes as she felt, rather than saw, the distance grow between herself and her friends.

Everything was a blur: reaching the top of the tower and reorienting the signal, gasping with relief when it finally, finally clicked into place. Knowing that her friends would be able to dock now that she had done this one thing. Seeing the radiation grow closer, thinking about jumping, and realizing that she couldn’t do it.

Her fight was over. But she couldn’t be the one to bring about her own death. Damn it all, she wanted to live.

It was so much scarier, having a tiny morsel of hope. It was so much easier when all hope was lost and she was resigned to her own death. But now that she had decided to fight, everything was on the line. Her hands shook as she threw the backpack to the ground, hearing it fall dozens of feet below, and began climbing down the tower as fast as she could put one foot below the other.

She jumped the last ten feet and collapsed into the snow, barely feeling the throbbing in her legs.

She was a Nightblood. She could survive this. But only if she could survive the initial impact of the radiation. The only way she would live is if she reached the laboratory. So she took one look over her shoulder at the flames closing in, and she ran for her life.


	3. Chapter 3

**BELLAMY**

He knew the launch ship protocols, knew that once someone gave the final command, it would take minutes to open the door again. Minutes that they didn’t have. He knew he had put Raven in a horrible situation, having to leave two of her friends behind. But he also knew she would make that difficult decision and launch the ship, because she would choose the lives of her and her friends over the lives of Clarke and one very stupid Bellamy.

It was stupidity, what he was doing. Wasn’t it?

He didn’t care anymore.

He had to see Clarke one more time. He had to let her know that he wouldn’t leave her behind again. That was the only thought in his mind as he strode away from the launch ship, needing to get away before he was caught up in the flames.

At least some of his friends would get away from this mess.

At least his sister was safe, down in the bunker where she would be spending the next five years.

He hoped she would forgive him when she learned what he had done. Maybe she would be glad that he finally put someone else before himself, that he finally learned to have some compassion. That was what she’d accused him of, wasn’t it? Following Pike because he was blinded by grief for someone he’d lost. Well, he wasn’t going to lose someone else he cared about. He’d done far too much of that already.

He could hear the launch ship whirring as it prepared to blast off. Inside the safety of his hazmat suit, he looked at the dial on his oxygen tank and discovered that he had about an hour and a half left of air. An hour and a half to say his goodbyes to Clarke, or to figure out a way to save his sorry ass that had just made the dumbest decision of his life.

But if it was such a dumb decision, then why did it feel like the right thing to do? Why did he feel better about this decision than anything he’d ever done in his life?

_Because of Clarke. Because with her, it feels right._

But he couldn’t think about that now, not when he had one mission and one mission only: To find her and make sure she was all right.

He darted up the stairs and into the break room, as they had begun to call it, although nobody ever spent much time in there because there was no time for breaks when you were trying to save the world. (Or save yourselves from the world.) He closed the door to give himself a bit of shelter from the fumes coming from the launch ship. So he didn’t see it when it blasted off; he only heard the ruckus and felt the vibration shuddering through the floor. “May we meet again,” he said out of reflex, and thought he could feel his friends saying it too as they shot away from the earth.

They would make it. He knew it. They were smart and resourceful, and they would go on just fine without him. He loved them for that.

The last image he would have of their faces was the shock as he left the ship. That wasn’t how he wanted to end things with them. But better to be left with their shock than to leave Clarke here alone, never having seen her face again.

He opened the door now that it was safe and looked at the spot where the launch ship had been, then he walked down the stairs and studied the monitors. It was only a few minutes before the wave of radiation would reach them. It would tear through the landscape, decimating everything that wasn’t properly insulated. He would be safe in here, but only from the initial impact. The laboratory wasn’t sealed from radiation. After the clean air in his suit ran out, he would be exposed to the radiation and die in a matter of minutes, with this high of a dose. He had an hour and twenty minutes left.

Clarke had less, with the rate she was running through her oxygen. He didn’t know how long she had left.

But she was a Nightblood now. Surely that would offer her a little more protection. Luna had survived the radiation beacuse of her blood. Clarke would too. He had to believe that. If not, he would shut down completely.

She would still get sick, though, his brain reminded him. She would get sick, and if nobody was around to take care of her, would she pull through? The image of Clarke sick, alone, and scared caused the lump in his throat to expand.

If only he could communicate with her over the radio... But the radiation had interrupted all communication, leaving him helpless to know how any of his friends were doing. He would have no way of knowing if Clarke got the signal up and running or how the docking process was going. The not-knowing was agony. He couldn’t watch the wave of radiation close in any longer, so he ran to the door and stepped outside, holding onto the frame of the building to prevent himself from being battered around by the ever-increasing wind.

He knew what direction she was in. But that was it. He didn’t know if she was taking a different route back, and going out to look for her meant that they could miss each other entirely. She was strong and capable; he knew she would make it back.

She just had to make it back before his oxygen ran out.

Or her own.


	4. Chapter 4

**CLARKE**

Her breath burned in her throat. She had been running for ten minutes, dodging flaming logs, ducking under trees that crashed around her. The laboratory was up ahead, and her vision was already fading around the edges. Her heart sang in her chest, _Almost there, almost there, almost there._

And then she _was_ there, and the white building was in her line of sight, and she was crying with relief. But something must have been wrong with her vision, because there was someone standing in a hazmat suit in the doorway. She was hallucinating, she had to be, because her friends had left. She had seen the ship take off with her own eyes and wished them well. But a figure in an orange suit was running to meet her, and she was losing her mind.

After all this work, maybe she had hallucinated it all. Maybe she was lying at the bottom of the tower, dreaming all of this and about to die.

The wave of radiation was too loud around her to hear anything. All she could feel was an arm around her back and her body being tugged toward the entrance. The door closed behind them with a whirr and a hiss, and then she was being gently lowered to the floor so she could lean against the wall.

She knew she was dying now, because Bellamy was there. Of course he would be the person she saw at the end of her life. He had been there for her during so much, of course he would be there in her last moments. She tried to reach for him, and he caught her hand and squeezed it between his own. His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear anything over the roaring in her ears.

***

Dizziness. That was all she knew for the next...she didn’t know how long. If this was dying, it wasn’t so bad. Her body was rocking gently side to side as if she was being carried. Her head dropped to the side and she was asleep again.

***

She opened her eyes in the break room, where she was laying on the couch, her helmet removed and hazmat suit unzipped. It was so damn hot in here, but her body was shaking as if she had a fever, and try as she might she couldn’t stop the trembling.

He was there again, by her side, smoothing the hair away from her face. “Clarke,” he said, and his voice was just like she remembered it, and this hallucination was so real it hurt.

“You’re not really here,” she whispered.

His face twisted, and he placed a hand on her forehead. His skin was so warm she closed her eyes at his touch, wanting him to stay there forever.

“I’m here.”

She didn’t know if this was real or made-up, but she would take all the comfort she could get. She couldn’t get any words out, and Bellamy just stroked her hair gently until her eyes drifted closed again and sleep took her.

***

She woke with a horrible gnawing feeling in the center of her stomach, like some creature had woken up and was trying to get out. It was all she could do to turn her head before an awful burning liquid was making its way up her throat and onto the floor.

And he was there, holding her hair back from her face while she vomited and wiping her mouth with a cloth when she was done. “Shh,” he was saying, “you’re going to be okay.”

All she could do was whimper from the pain. Her mouth tasted like copper, and her stomach clenched again as it tried to expel more of the contents.

“I know it hurts. You’re going to be okay.” He helped her lean forward so that she could keep throwing up, scooting a tub underneath her to catch the mess.

She gagged and threw up for what felt like an eternity, throat burning and stomach heaving. By the time she was done the bucket and surrounding floor were covered in blood and it looked like someone had been stabbed. She felt like she had been stabbed.

If this was a hallucination, then how was he holding her up while she retched, supporting her through her pain?

“Bellamy,” she croaked.

“Shhh. Don’t try to talk.” He eased her back onto the couch, propping her head up on the armrest and tucking a blanket over her.

She couldn’t have talked even if she tried, her throat hurt so much. She groaned and let her eyes close, giving herself up to the darkness again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very much for reading and for your encouraging comments. I will be updating every weekend from now on. Thank you for sticking with me. I won't be abandoning these guys!

BELLAMY

Seeing her appear over the crest of the snow-covered hill was like someone had unveiled the sun after a night that lasted a year. She was staggering, barely able to keep moving, and he caught her just as her knees buckled. 

He half-supported, half-carried her inside and pressed the button to close the hatch. It wasn’t a moment too soon, because the wind pushed them over just as the door clanked shut. He helped ease Clarke to the floor and leaned her head against the polished white wall. Her mouth was stained with blood that she had evidently been coughing up.

She was trying to talk, but they couldn’t hear each other over the roar of the wind outside, and she didn’t seem to be making much sense anyway. The fever had set in and she was delirious. Seeing her in pain was like driving a nail into his own heart, and he would have preferred being in pain himself. How had it come to this, after hating her at first, that now he would willingly give his own well-being to prevent her from having any pain?

But there was nothing he could do except ease her suffering and trust that the Nightblood would help work the radiation out of her system.

However, it was looking unlikely that she would be coherent anytime soon, which meant he would be dead before they could have any sort of meaningful conversation. Which meant that he was going to have to find a way to survive, because he had to talk to her one more time. Had to tell her... well, he didn’t know what he wanted to tell her, but he would figure that out later. First he had to survive long enough to help nurse her back to health.

Even though he was the one in the dire health situation right now.

He knew there were more vials of Nightblood in the lab. And since Abby was religious about labeling everything, there was a chance he could find it. How had Clarke done it? Just jabbed the syringe into her own arm adn pressed down on the plunger. Surely even he could manage that.

He scooped up Clarke, her helmet whacking against his shoulder and bouncing off his own helmet with a dull thunk. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to not even notice. With one arm under her knees and the other under her back, he carried her up the stairs and into the break room. He gently set her on the couch and removed her helmet, because it wasn’t going to do her any good. She had already been exposed to the radiation beacuse of the leak in her suit. Better for her to be comfortable now.

He couldn’t stop himself from smoothing a stray piece of hair from her forehead. Her blonde hair was matted to her head with sweat, and blood was dried around her mouth, but she was still the most welcome sight he could imagine.

God, to imagine being on the spaceship, launching into the atmosphere without ever seeing her bright blue eyes again... It was the worst thought possible.

Nightblood or not, he knew he had made the right decision.

After tucking Clarke in with a blanket he found in the closet, he dashed to the refrigerator where samples were stored. Abby had made a few test vials of Nightblood in preparation for dosing the entire crew, but since it had never been officially tested, they hadn’t ended up being used. He hoped beyond hope that the vials were still there, and in possibly the first stroke of good luck he had experienced in the past...well, his entire life, there they were.

He picked up the first one and read the label, making sure it was the correct concoction. Although he was afraid of taking off his suit because of the radiation, it was the only way to properly administer the dose to himself. He would just have to hope that the Nightblood would kick in with enough time to filter out the radiation.

He didn’t want Clarke to see him like this. Heart beating like a butterfly’s wings, he disengaged the locking mechanism on his helmet and set it on the floor. He had to resist the urge to hold his breath, like that would help. Pulling his suit down to his waist, he winced, then inserted the syringe into his bicep. Ignoring the dull ache, he pressed down on the plunger and let the dark liquid drain into his arm.

Spidery black liquid extended from the spot where the needle entered, and his veins burned like had injected acid into them. God, was this how it had felt for Clarke, too? How had she kept from reacting?

She might look like a princess on the outside, but on the inside she was made of steel and iron.

RIght now he felt as fragile as spun silk and cotton.

He took a step to put the syringe back, but his knees buckled, and before he could catch grip of anything he collapsed to the ground. He couldn’t even get back upstairs to check on Clarke because his body was betraying him. At least he had seen her one more time before he died. Even if she didn’t remember it.

If the Nightblood worked and she survived this...how terrible would it be for her to come downstairs, bleary from her illness, and discover his dead body? He had just made things so much worse for her. She would wonder what had happened, and when she worked it out, she would beat herself up for not having saved him. Even though it was his fault because of his stupid decision and not her fault at all, she was good at blaming herself for things.

If you need forgiveness, I’ll give that to you. You’re forgiven. That’s what he’d said to her all those months ago after Mount Weather. But she had never internalized that forgiveness. She had never forgiven herself. And she would certainly never forgive herself for letting Bellamy die.

He couldn’t be just another corpse for her to carry on her back. 

He had to live. If not for himself, then for Clarke.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have not abandoned fic, just had some health issues arise that prevented writing. Having surgery next week, so updates will likely be delayed again, but I will return!

CLARKE

For a long time, all that existed was darkness. Darkness punctuated by pain, deep in her chest, like she had swallowed a handful of needles and they were expanding into her lungs pushing through her flesh. But nothing ever emerged, even when she looked down like she expected to see something bursting free. The pain remained inside and she began to take it for granted, to realize that she would never escape it.

The darkness lifted for moments at a time when water was held to her lips. By whom, she didn’t know. She was too weak to even question if the water was poisoned. She just sucked it down gratefully, allowing the liquid to wet her sandpaper tongue and coat her throat. 

Gradually the pain in her limbs decreased until not all of the sensations she felt were excruciating, and she was able to detect the soft warmth of a blanket tucked around her. Someone had put it there with care. But she was alone. Everyone had left.

Or had she hallucinated that, too? Maybe her friends hadn’t even made it into space, and they had all died in Praimfaiya. Maybe this was the afterlife. She was stuck in limbo, or she was in hell, like she deserved to be.

If this was hell, though, she would have expected a bit more fire.

Gingerly she eased onto her elbow enough so that she could survey the room. She was still in the lab, and it was unscathed, having escaped the blow of Praimfaiya. A few bottles were knocked over on the shelves like someone had been accessing medication in a hurry. A blanket was strewn nearby on the floor, a few pillows nearby. 

She sat up, head spinning, and took a moment to brace herself between her knees so that the room stopped rotating. Don’t move too fast, you aren’t out of the woods yet, she could practically hear her mother advising. She would give the same advice to someone recovering from Acute Radiation Sickness, too. Don’t move too fast. After all, people don’t usually recover from ARS.

But she had. Which meant... the Nightblood had worked.

If only they had tested it beforehand. Then everyone could have stayed here on Earth with her, and nobody would have had to go into the bunker. But Abby had been too selfish to test it on her own daughter – even though that daughter was willing – and now the entire world was paying the price.

Clarke would be the one paying the price. How would she survive the next five years here alone? Chills shot through her just thinking about it, and it wasn’t just the fever. She didn’t know if she could survive alone. Maybe physically. But without anybody to talk to?

But then who had taken care of her, if she was alone?

The door opened. Her head whipped around, too fast, and she was dizzy again, but that didn’t matter because she was obviously hallucinating. She had to be, because Bellamy was crouching next to her, holding out a glass of water to her parched mouth. “Don’t move too fast,” he warned, and wasn’t that just what she had been saying to herself? Nothing more than a hallucination, but what a welcome one.

If he was a hallucination, though, the water wouldn’t feel so perfect on her chapped lips and sore throat. Ice cold and with the taste of a mountain river.

“How...” she croaked.

“Shh. You’re okay.”

She was, now that she saw him. “How are you here?”

He gently eased her back onto the couch, then took a few sips of water himself. Now that she looked more closely, he wasn’t looking so good himself. Aside from him being an extremely welcome sight to her, it was clear that he was suffering from ARS himself. Of course he was, since the lab wasn’t sealed against radiation. He was feeling the effects of it just like she was.

“You need to rest. We can talk later.”

What was there to talk about? He was here, and she was hallucinating and maybe dying, and if she wasn’t hallucinating then he was certainly going to die, not being a Nightblood himself. Which meant... “You stayed behind.”

He nodded once. “Couldn’t leave you again.”

There was so much he was holding back, but she couldn’t press him right now, not when she could barely string words together. “You’re sick,” she got out.

“So are you.”

“I’m a Nightblood. I’m getting better.” It would have been more convincing if she hadn’t ended with a cough that spattered blood on the blanket.

He released a breath, then sat down on the couch beside her, the cushion moving under his weight. “I’m a Nightblood too, Clarke.”

“You’re... What?”

“I injected myself with the other vial that Abby made.”

That was the stupidest thing she’d ever heard. “You’re an idiot.”

“Thanks for the gratitude.”

“Gratitude? I...” A million thoughts rushed through her head: Why, why hadn’t he gone into the space with the rest of their friends? Why would he do something so completely reckless? What if the Nightblood didn’t work? But most of all... What would she do without companionship here for these five years? What would she have done if he hadn’t stayed?

“I know it was risky,” he continued, “but I couldn’t leave you behind.”

She shook her head, wiping traces of blood from the corners of her mouth. “You might be an idiot, Bellamy, but...thank you.”

He nodded once. “It looks like you’re feeling a little better, hmm? Why don’t we get you washed up?”

She could only imagine how horrific she smelled. Her mouth tasted like something had died in there. Bellamy helped ease her to her feet and she took her first tottering steps in several days. Which reminded her... “How long has it been?”

“Since Praimfaiya?” 

She nodded.

“Four days, give or take.”

Four days. “Why aren’t you sick?”

“I wasn’t exposed to as large of a dose as you were.”

“But this bunker isn’t sealed against radiation. You’re still exposed.” If the Nightblood didn’t work on him...

“It’s protected against some level of radiation. I’m still being exposed, just more slowly.” He opened the door and guided her through. With each step her legs shook but she felt better than she had in days, like the Nightblood was kicking in rapidly.

“So you’re going to get sick any day now.”

“Honestly, Clarke, I’ve felt better.”

She stopped and looked at him, really looked at him, for the first time since she had gained her coherence again. There were dark circles under his eyes and his cheekbones were more prominent than usual, leading her to believe that he hadn’t been eating. There was also a small smear of blood at the corner of his mouth. Without thinking, she reached to wipe it away with her thumb. He blinked in surprise, and she drew away. “You have some...”

“Oh.” He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked at the blood that came away. “Damn.”

“It’s okay.” They continued their procession down the hall, her heart beating wildly in her chest from the effort of walking. “I’m better now. So you’re going to get better, too.” An overly simplistic way of putting things, but it was what she had to believe. And now she could take care of him the way he had taken care of her. 

When they reached the stairs, her knees buckled, so Bellamy slid an arm around her shoulders to help prop her up. She leaned into the solid warmth of his body as he helped her down the stairs. Stupid decision, maybe, for him to stay behind. But she was glad for his stupidity.


End file.
